


Day 16 -- Growth

by Flamebird38



Series: 31 Days of Apex [15]
Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: 31 Days of Apex (Apex Legends)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25326934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flamebird38/pseuds/Flamebird38
Summary: Bangalore's world comes crashing down when she learns what the IMC really did in the past. Will this be something she can grow from, or will her world forever be ruined?
Series: 31 Days of Apex [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1811551
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Day 16 -- Growth

I drop down from my spot, landing behind Loba. She doesn’t turn to look at me. Instead, she watches Revenant slink into the shadows and then stares down at her pistol. The air between us is thick, and the cool, night air does nothing to soothe it. Neither of us wants to speak first but I know she’s not exactly happy to be ambushed by her enemies back to back.

“You missed your shot,” She speaks out. Her voice shatters the silence that was starting to choke us out. She doesn’t bother turning to me, still looking down at her custom pistol. “You could have taken out the so-called bad guy.”

“Ha, yeah, well…” I shift my weight back and forth. Why didn’t I take the shot? I had the chance to take out that monster. I could have helped Loba like I intended to do when I set out on this mission. What stopped me? “Get back to me when you know who that is, and I will.”

Loba finally turns to me, her expression a multitude of things. The lights from her ship illuminate the sheer confusion on her face and the deep thought behind her eyes. I can tell she’s sad, angry, confused, broken, and fulfilled all at the same time. Which emotion is aimed towards me, God only knows. She opens her mouth to say something to me but decides whatever it is maybe better left unsaid. 

I take a small step forward, starting to extend my arm toward her. What was this? Comfort? An apology? Permission to let her slap me? As soon as she notices I’m closing the gap, Loba takes several steps back. I quickly stop in my tracks, letting my arm flop back to my side. I take a deep breath, swallowing my pride. _Just get it over with, ‘Nita. Apologize._

“Loba, I—” As if on cue, a call comes through my comms. Gibraltar is on the other end, saying that they have collected the last piece. I tell him that now isn’t a good time, but he insists that I need to make it back as soon as possible. Hammond had sent over the cords to wherever we need take the artifact, and once one of us got it there, they’ll tell Loba where the source code is. I nod on my end even though he can’t see me. I tell him I’ll be there as soon as possible, and then patch off the line.

Loba turns to me, her face completely devoid of color. She hunched over slightly, her limbs slightly trembling. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she had been hit by a freight train. It’s almost as if she didn’t want to believe that she had gotten this far. That she had finally reached the end of this long leg of her journey.

“Well, you heard the man,” I say to her, tapping my earpiece. “Mission accomplished.”

“Yes,” she says, the single word saturated in fake confidence. She speaks again, but this time it is so low I’m not sure I’m supposed to be hearing it. “I’m going to have my revenge… by being the answer to his prayers.”

“What are you going to do?” I hesitate.

“For the first time in a long time,” She says, looking me in the eyes for the first time since I’ve been here. “I don’t have a clue.”

I nod, turning to walk back to my vehicle. There was no point in backtracking the conversation. Besides, Gibraltar needed me back at the bar so we could make our final game plan. I take a few hesitant steps into the darkness, second-guessing myself. _Maybe I should turn back and say something,_ I think. _But who am I kidding… I had one round in the chamber and I missed my opportunity._

“Sergeant, wait a moment,” Loba calls out after me. I stop dead in my tracks and turn around to face her once again. She’s still by her ship, but I hadn’t gotten far so it’s not like she had to shout. “You know how you told me to let you know when I knew who the bad guy was?”

“Yeah?” I crinkle my brow in confusion. Did Revenant show back up? Hammond?

“I’m looking at her right now.” Loba’s words hit like a truck. Me? I’m the bad guy? I want to question her about her statement, but she quickly boards her ship and closes the hatch. 

Left out in the darkness, I have no choice but to be alone with her lingering statement. Walking back to my vehicle, I want to do several things. I want to be angry, I want to scream, I want to be sad, but, above all else, I laugh. I came here and risked my skin so I could save her ass. I may have gotten her in this mess but I still showed up to right my wrong. And she dares to call me the bad guy?

When I finally make it to Mirage’s bar, Gibraltar is the first one to greet me. He says Pathfinder went to go take the relic to Hammond’s coordinates, so we were all free to relax for the night. While the thought of hanging out and relaxing was incredibly inviting, I can’t stop thinking about what Loba said. Do the other Legends think this too?

I make my way up to the bartop, and Mirage comes up to me with my usual double-shot of scotch. “You okay, Bangs?” His brow is crinkled more than I’ve ever seen it before.

“Huh? Yeah, I’m totally fine.”

He lets out a hum of disapproval, clearly not believing me. “You look like you’ve been through the wringer… that’s all.” He starts polishing a glass, looking at me up and down. 

“Ah, well, you know me…” I take a sip of my scotch, trying to think of something to say. Mirage just looks at me expectantly, which only makes me blurt out what didn’t want to. “Loba said I was the bad guy in all this. Which I know is a load of crock but…”

Next to me, Wraith practically chokes on her drink. I give her a hard glare. When she looks up at me, she gets defensive. “What? You think she’s lying?”

“Well, she sure as hell ain’t tellin’ the truth.” I feel my hand squeeze my glass. The entire room goes silent. I must have said that a tad too loud. 

Wraith gets out of her seat and bows up to me. Even though she’s six inches shorter than me, she still knows how to stare me down. “Fucking typical of you.”

“Typical?” I feel my jaw tighten. What is she getting at here?

“You always sit there and attest to your innocence, but all you ever do is belittle people and order people around. You bully people left and right, feel entitled to people’s respect. And when you don’t get your way? You physically hurt people. You _threaten_ people. You say you’re ‘Ex-IMC’ but you still demand that people call you by your rank. You’re not Ex-IMC, you’re a tyrant.”

I feel my cheeks start to get hot. I don’t bark at people. I don’t threaten people. I just speak in a language they can understand. I was taught tough love in the IMC, so what? I acknowledge when I’m in the wrong, but I will fight tooth and nail when someone tries to accuse me of being something I’m not.

“I am Ex-IMC,” I spit at her. “I’ve said time and time again that this new Hammond is bad news. I will never put myself on their side. So, if this is your only argument, I suggest you stand down.”

Wraith takes a few steps forward, forcing me back. I knock the stool onto the floor, and the thud sounds much like a bomb in the silent room. “The keywords here are ‘new Hammond.’ You have never accepted that the IMC— _your_ IMC—has ravaged The Frontier since its beginning. You’ve never accepted that you had a hand in it or the fact that your entire family legacy is rooted in it.

“Even if you don’t want to look beyond this planet, you can’t even recognize the crimes right in front of you. You won’t even acknowledge the horrors that they did to me. You don’t acknowledge the torture that I went through. All in Kings fucking Canyon!” She raises her hand and pokes me hard in my chest, pushing me back even more. “This is the same place you call ‘your house’ with ‘your rules,’ and you just decide to turn a blind eye.”

I feel my heart skip a beat. The Williams family were good people. We fought for truth, justice, and peace. _That_ is what our family legacy was rooted in. Not experiments or torture or destruction. I take a step towards Wraith but she holds her ground, practically having us touching chests. “You act like I was the one who pulled the switch on the experiments. You know full well I would never participate in a borderline war crime such as that.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t? Where the hell do you think you were headed when you were on the mission that crash-landed you here, huh?” 

“To retrieve a—” But I don’t even get to finish my sentence. Wraith opens a portal behind me and shoves me through. On the other side, I land flat on my ass in an old, dusty server room. Wraith steps through the portal closing it.

Stepping over me, she heads to the single monitor and begins typing. I look around me and see that she had portaled us to the Labs in Kings Canyon. The fuck? Why did she bring me here?

“I have gotten into every file this place has left. There’s next to nothing about me, but a lot of these files were backups to any communication the IMC had while in the Outlands.

“You were headed to Talos, Williams. To get rid of the hunters. The IMC still wanted to harvest its resources but knew they couldn’t with factions of people blocking their moves.” I don’t even get up from my place. I don’t need to see the screen to know what she was saying wasn’t true. This was all just a load of shit. I know what kind of mission we were sent on. We were dispatched to a rescue mission. Nothing more, nothing less. 

I feel Wraith’s eyes on me as she continues. “A team had gotten there before you. They had destroyed a good chunk of the villages already. The Militia showed up to stop them, and that’s why you were called as back up. But you already know this, don’t you? You already know that you were on another assignment, but your ship was also the closest. That's why you got diverted.” I look up at her. She’s staring daggers at me.

I finally get up and brush myself off. No, that’s not what happened. Not in the slightest bit. “Actually, no. The Militia started attacking the villages. Ones that we had treaties and contracts with. They decimated the place. We were dispatched on a _recovery_ mission.”

“Is that what you were told in case your communications got intercepted?” She raises an eyebrow at me. Her tone wasn’t as harsh as it was back at the bar, but it was still accusatory. 

“No,” I deadpan. “We weren’t sent for that. Period.”

“Then what is this?” She opens a file. It contains a single image of a destroyed village. There was not a single house or shop left standing. The entire thing was reduced to rubble. 

I step forward, taking a closer look. When I start noticing the small details, my head begins to spin. _No, this can’t be right._ _This… can’t…_ When looking at the trucks, the tanks, and the ships, I know that those aren’t from the Militia. Those are from the IMC… from us.

I feel my face flush and my knees grow weak. That can’t be possible. The IMC was going there to save the people, not harm them. They— _we_ —would never do something like this. We would never harm innocent people. But the indisputable evidence was right in front of me. There was our sister ship in the background, blown to smithereens. 

“You are the bad guy here, Williams. You have always been. No matter how self-righteous you try to act, you will _always_ be one of them… One of the bad guys.”

I feel my hands grip the desk in front of me, trying to feel something in this sea of numbness. “Take me home.” My voice is rigid, angry. Wraith only smirks at me. She finally got to bring me a type of pain I have yet to experience. The IMC was my home, my purpose. And in one fell swoop, Wraith had it all come crashing down. 

Her voices didn’t have time to warn her about what was going to come next. I reach out and grab her by the neck. I pin her against the wall, fury filling my face. “I said, take me. The fuck. Home.” Desperately trying to get a breath, she quickly opens her portal. When I make sure she’s not going to close it on me, I drop her and begin to step through. 

“After all that…” Her voice is raspy, bitter. “ _Typical_ of you, Sergeant.”

When I reach the other side of the portal, I realize that Wraith took my request seriously. I was now standing in my dark kitchen. The only light coming through from the moon peeking through the far window. 

That’s when it happens. Reality catches up with me. I let out the biggest scream I could muster. I swipe my arm across the counter knocking my toaster, coffee maker, and assorted condiments onto the floor. I advance on my exposed brick wall, punching it over and over again. My knuckles start to bleed but it doesn’t matter. After what kind of blood and tears were on mine, it was only right that spare some on my own. 

I walk over to my small area that housed all of IMC gear. I kept it here as a reminder of what I was trying to get back to, but now I know that everything I did was for the good of profit, not life. I take my sergeants patch and tear it in half. It means nothing to me now. Just thinking about the crimes I was being asked to commit without even knowing it. I don’t deserve to be respected as a Sergeant First Class. 

I look at my uniform. It was a disgrace to me now. How was I able to wear this and think that we were the good guys? People on The Frontier didn’t respect this uniform, they feared it. I take a sleeve and rip it off the shoulder and toss it to the side. I take every medal and badge that I earned off the chest and chuck them at the front door. 

Then my knees grow weak. I fall to the floor, finally letting out the sobs I was so desperately trying to hold in. Why? Why? _Why?_ Did my parents know about these crimes? Did Jackson? I don’t even want to try to answer that question. 

I somehow find myself against the wall, knees to my chest. Both my patch and my jacket are on the floor to my left. If they could talk, I feel like they would be mocking me for my stupidity. My handful of badges that I tossed are just barely visible at the front door, getting eaten up by the darkness. 

I put my head in my hands, crying harder than I ever had before. I never set out to be a part of these crimes. I wanted to better The Frontier, its people, and its technology. Was this really why we were at war with the Militia? Not because they were trying to keep this a place run by marauders like we were told, but to stop us from forming a tyranny? Were we truly the bad guys?

_Apologize, Anita. You have that single round._

“I’m sorry,” I sob. I don’t know who I’m talking to. Maybe myself, maybe the ghosts of my past, maybe God himself. “I’m so, so, so sorry.” I repeat that phrase over and over again, hoping that whoever was listening would consider forgiving me.

  
As I continue to mourn over the sudden loss of my life, my identity, the one thing that kept me going for so long, I think back to what my father would always tell me: _A seed can’t grow in the middle of the sky. It’s gotta hit the ground first. Then, and only then, can it set roots to grow into the very thing it was destined to._


End file.
